Two-time winner of the Juno awards for best classical composition, Chan Ka Nin’s works have been
performed by ensembles and artists such as the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, the National Arts
Orchestra, the Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra, the Esprit Orchestra, the Hamilton Philharmonic
Orchestra, the Manitoba Chamber Orchestra, Orchestra London Canada, Symphony Nova Scotia, Amici,
the Mirò Quartet, the Purcell Quartet, Rivka Golani, and Lawrence Cherney.

His numerous international awards include the Jean Chalmers Award, the Béla Bartók International
Composers Competition, the Barlow International Competition, the International Horn Society
Composition Contest, the PROCAN Young Composers Competition, and the Amherst Saxophone Quartet
Composition Competition.

Chan was born in Hong Kong and moved with his family to Vancouver in 1965. At the University of
British Columbia he studied composition with Jean Coulthard while pursuing a Bachelor’s degree in
Electrical Engineering. After graduation, he decided to continue studying composition with Bernhard
Heiden at Indiana University where he eventually obtained master’s and doctoral degrees in music.
In 2001, his opera Iron Road won the Dora Mavor Moore Award for Outstanding New Musical.
In 2002, his chamber work Par-çi, par-là, which was recorded by Ensemble Contemporain du
Montréal, received the Juno award for best classical composition. He has been teaching theory and
composition at the University of Toronto since 1982.